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These poems are second lines. They are about live performance. I was there

when the musician felt a certain way and it came out of the horn. I was

 there when my own life could not be delivered by anything but music.

 

 

Books by Lee Meitzen Grue

Goodbye Silver, Silver Cloud  /  In the Sweet Balance of the Flesh   / French Quarter Poems  / Three Poets in New Orleans

*   *   *   *   *

Live! on Frenchmen Street

 CD by Lee Meitzen Grue

Musicians: Eluard Burt II: Flute, keyboard; Roger Poche: Bass

Lee Grue writes about New Orleans street life: Her poems and stories are the essence of live music.

She and flute player Eluard Burt first met and performed together at a place called The Quorum Club on Esplanade Avenue during the sixties. Over the years they lost contact. Recently, they met again and began performing together as The New Orleans Jazz and Poetry Ensemble.

The Second Line

What? Who? Is the second line. It's not the corpse in the casket. It's not the band of sweating musicians who follow the casket playing their souls out in the August heat. It is the people who follow the parade, dancing. We can't keep still, sometimes we arrive in church too early, one of us laying his hat on his stiff left arm begins to move up the aisle to the music, but someone comes and gently says: "Brother, the second line is forming outside."

These poems are second lines. They are about live performance. I was there when the musician felt a certain way and it came out of the horn. I was there when my own life could not be delivered by anything but music. A live performance is a one time thing thing. Special to everyone in the room. Sometimes it is not the best performance, but it is unique. Never will there be quite this mix of people, place, and music ever again.

In Louisiana babies don't always get left at home, we were taken along, and when the musician set ups set up the drums in the empty dance hall, I was there for the first beat: Ever after, I'm in the second line.

 

Table of Contents

1. Ade's World: Cafe Brasil (3:30)

2. Allan (3:45)

3. Ann's Bar (2:47)

4. Babe Stovall (3:35)

5. Bread (3:50)

6. Dear Pilgrim (4:44)

7. Fats Domino at the Blue Room of the Roosevelt Hotel (2:36)

8. The Fire Eater (1:51)

9. The French Market (4:04)

10. Girls in a Bar on St. Louis Street (3:00)

11. Hey, Jimmy (4:57)

12. Terminal (1:08)

13. Mardi Gras (3:26)

14. Coming Out a Midnight (2:15)

15. Miles (2:43)

16. The Sleep Woman (3:34)

17. Sunk in Funk (3:05)

In 2000, Eluard A. Burt collaborated with Lee Meitzen Grue to produce Live! On Frenchmen Street

New Orleans music and street life as seen and lived by spoken word artist, with jazz background. Poet Lee Meitzen Grue and flute player Eluard Burt were part of The Quorum Club, the legendary coffee house on edge of the French Quarter during the sixties. They began doing jazz and poetry together at that time.

During the last few years they've resumed their collaboration with the help of Kichea Burt who engineered the sound on this CD.

They've performed at Cafe Brasil and other New Orleans clubs and in New York at The Knitting Factory.Grue, who also writes books, has appeared on the college circuit in the U.S. and internationally. She consider these poems "second lines": Homage to the musicians she follows.

There's an interview with Lee Grue in the (Winter 2001) issue of "Brilliant Corners: A Journal of Jazz and Literature." Check it out. Photos, interview, and four pages of poetry. An overview of the jazz and poetry scene in New Orleans.

To Listen: http://cdbaby.com/cd/grue also http://hearingvoices.com/story.php?fID=153

 

 

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